Activision Blizzard CEO Robert "Bobby" Kotick on Thursday said he is "optimistic" about the future of the game industry as "a very low cost form of entertainment, if you look at the dollar-cost-per-hour." CNBC interviewed Kotick, who was in Sun Valley, Idaho, for the relatively secretive annual Allen & Company media mogul conference.
Here's what he had to say about Activision Blizzard stocks performing above expectations in a down economy:
While Kotick does not speak specifically about WoW, there were some pretty interesting aspects to the interview that I wanted to elaborate on a bit because they can be applied to our favorite MMORPG. The journalist interviewing Kotick first points out that Activision Blizzard (and Electronic Arts) stocks were performing well Thursday. That's just a snapshot in time showing the trading levels at that point in the day, but if you look at the
levels over the past six months or so, you'll see that the values have been rising steadily.
Not surprisingly, the stock market apparently was on the minds of many Thursday who attended a panel on the economy at the conference. Although not an expert on the economy, Kotick pointed out that the availability of new hardware and the diversity of gaming experiences combine as a way to satisfy a lot of different entertainment needs all in one punch. As Kotick puts it, "While I'm relatively pessimistic about the economy, I'm very optimistic about the ability for video games to satisfy entertainment needs of consumers."
And since we've been
talking a bit about the
future of WoW lately, I also found it interesting that Kotick said he's been looking at his expectations for Activision Blizzard over the next 5 to 10 years. He said that increasing production values, more effective in-game social interactions and the physical aspects of gaming "are really great catalysts for expansion of our audience; and we're still in the early days of markets like Western Europe, (and) in
China."
So perhaps WoW (or the
next MMO) will be more of a world-wide audience? It seems that Kotick is hinting at that thought, which seems like smart business to me (more subscribers = more $$).
Also along the idea of more money, Kotick said that lower the price of hardware, "the more consumers will be willing to purchase (it)." Makes perfect sense to me. Of course, a PC is a pretty hefty pricetag for someone just to play a game. But one would assume most people would have their computer for other uses, as well.
What does everyone else make of this interview? Can you think of any other ways in which Kotick's ideas may be applied to WoW or the future of other Activision Blizzard MMOs, or do you think his points were too general to draw any real conclusions?
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